Then Jefferson Airplane sang the line “Ain’t it amazing all the people I meet,” it came within the context of a song that was both anti-establishment and unifying in its scope. The gist was that the more subversive the context, the more interesting the people are that it attracts. It’s important to remember this at Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, the largest in the country and arguably the most popular festival of its kind. The 2009 festival was not my first, but it did mark the first time I attended as a member of the credentialed press, giving me more access than I had ever enjoyed, though probably less than you would think.
Bonnaroo has featured many great acts over the
years — this year alone I saw Bruce Springsteen,
Phish and Trent Reznor’s NIN swan song — but
it wouldn’t be what it is without the faithful fans
who camp out all weekend long, year after year.
When you pack more than 75,000 people into an area that’s only a little larger than one square mile, there’s bound to be plenty of unique interactions among multifarious personalities, motives and missions. You’ll run into famous people everywhere, dirty people even more often, the occasional nudist and maybe even a puppet.
The following list doesn’t cover every type of
person that convenes on the Manchester, Tenn.
farm for that weekend in June, but it does touch
on the ones that you’re most likely to encounter in
the pursuit of shared musical fulfillment.
The Inspired
Since the days of Hesiod, humans have believed that great works of art and literature can spring from anyone given the proper inspiration. While the poet’s inspiration allegedly arrived in a more anthropomorphic form, one’s physical surroundings are fully capable of serving the same purpose. It’s inevitable that in the course of walking the festival grounds, you’ll come across someone creating something from nothing. Yes, the Muse of Dance is certainly the most prevalent, but closer examination of the outlying areas will reveal someone filling pages of a notebook or painting on canvas. When the moment strikes and the proper outlet isn’t readily available, however, it just might spill over onto someone else. Such was the case during this year’s Grizzly Bear performance, when I found my notebook snatched from my pocket and in the hands of someone with something so important to say that it couldn’t wait (see above). Sometimes, it doesn’t even need to happen between the stages. Sometimes, it can happen on stage as well. A rare, worldly and utterly ethereal live performance by Bill Laswell’s amorphously psychedelic worldbeat act Material on a Sunday afternoon in 2004 resulted in an acrylic painting of Buddha by artist Jason Alberto Garcia. As Laswell, Buckethead, Hamid Drake and Karsh Kale sent waves of Indo-Persian flavored funkfusion through a tired crowd, Garcia labored diligently at the back of the stage to capture the indescribable energy of the show on his wooden canvas. The painting itself would go on to sell almost immediately afterwards.
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog
Technically, this was the first year that Triumph would make an appearance at Bonnaroo, but he was nearly impossible to avoid. Anyone who saw the summary of his fine work on the June 19 episode of “The Tonight Show” knows that no one was safe from the sardonic wrath of him and puppeteer Robert Smigel. He was in the campground, the press area, vendor booths, up front for Springsteen and on stage with Neko Case singing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” Though I was never unfortunate enough to have stumbled directly into his clutches, my first encounter with him was rather surreal. I was walking back into the press area on Friday afternoon for an interview when I walked past Tunde Adebimpe and Jaleel Bunton of TV on the Radio standing in front of a camera crew. It seemed rather innocuous, until I noticed Smigel kneeling down in front of them with a script in one hand and the other raised in the air. It took a moment to register what was transpiring since I didn’t see the Triumph puppet right away. Kind of like Tom Cruise, he’s a lot smaller when you see him in person. Of course, it was also the moment when Triumph would hilariously ask the band members to describe their music, keeping in mind that “suck” was already taken by the Decemberists. Is that a Decemberists reference? Surely, the next person you see at Bonnaroo must be…
The Hipster
The origin of the hipster element at Bonnaroo can be traced to a single band: Radiohead. Yes, Rilo Kiley and Franz Ferdinand did come the year before, but I’m talking headliners, the big draws. That moment was a major point of contention for the hipster community, as many were forced to disown the band after fears that Radiohead would gain wider acceptance were realized. Since that time in 2006, the Great Bonnaroo Hippie/Hipster Schism has advanced largely in favor of the latter. As the crunchy ones waned in numbers from the festival’s ever-increasing mainstream appeal, the presence of ironic T-shirt vendors heralded the arrival of a never-before seen demographic. Headliners drifted ignominiously from the jurisdiction of the free-range wookie to that of the skillfully color-coordinated and pleasantly-scented music festival participant. Umphrey’s McGee and Particle gave way to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Broken Social Scene. They don’t necessarily pose a threat, however. They don’t do anything, really, except their best to stand out in a crowd, even if that means donning the most garish and unconventional wardrobe in the middle of a 700- acre former pig farm. How can you be sure the person you’re dealing with is a hipster? One dead giveaway is the presence of a scarf in 90-degree heat, but throw in a houndstooth jacket and porkpie hat and you’ve hit DEFCON 5.
The Wookie
They aren’t just large, hairy bipeds from the Star Wars series who communicate through an incomprehensible series of grunts, but also large, hairy bipeds prevalent in the festival scene who communicate through an incomprehensible series of grunts. And also, they usually have weed. Yes, George Lucas did spell it with an extra ‘e’ at the end, but the transitive properties of the internet have bestowed upon us this newer, sleeker spelling to describe the nomadic festheads who exist outside of conventional society. Even though their numbers have abated in recent years at Bonnaroo, the 2009 edition experienced a renaissance thanks largely in part to the inclusion of two nights of Phish on the bill. They’re mostly grungy and dirty from being on tour all year, smell as if they’ve been sleeping on a pile of cigarette butts and are usually pretty whacked out on whatever intoxicants they’ve managed to procure. When they aren’t fighting with pigeons over a half-smoked Kool, they swoop in from thin air on people coming out of the food vendor line like Snoop Dogg in Half Baked. They’re generally untrustworthy, as living like a transient tends to make one, and any unattended coolers, chairs, clothing, etc. immediately become their own. Still, they’re generally more lazy opportunists than career criminals. Judging from the safety personnel spotted riding around in golf carts huffing nitrous balloons during the Bonnaroo late-night scene, they’ve managed to clean up enough to infiltrate the festival power structure at a yeoman level.
The Bonna-Brahs
Nothing says bromance like eight dudes from the Iota Kappa Pi house at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College packed into a six-person tent for the weekend. To the credit of the collegiate Greek community, they have been there since the very beginning and still maintain a strong presence eight years in. Along with the (genuine) hippie community, they constitute half of the Romulus and Remus of the festival and just like in Roman mythology, the latter didn’t stick around long enough to witness the heyday (even if “heyday” is a complete matter of perspective). They mostly came for two nights of Widespread Panic in the inaugural year and with five more nights of their avatar closing out the main stage since then, the annual trip to Manchester has become house tradition. With a keg of PBR iced in the back of the Land Rover, they are often vilified for chronically paying no heed to the recycling and composting norms ingrained from the beginning. Camping beside a group can be a blessing or a curse, depending entirely on your point of view. On one hand, they’re quick to offer you a beer at any time, usually starting at nine in the morning, and trustworthy enough to keep an eye on your stuff while you’re gone. On the other hand, sometimes keeping an eye on your stuff involves getting hammered and crashing into your tent, usually while you’re asleep inside of it.
Hunter S. Press
Covering Bonnaroo as a member of the
press is not only a great honor with a little bit of
fun on the side, but a lot of hard work. Between
trying to see as much music as possible and
hunting for a story amidst it all, a lot of miles
(and blisters) will be logged on foot. That is,
however, primarily for the mission-oriented
types. Others are there just to join the party.
They come in both writer and photographer
flavors and while the writers may blend in so
uncannily with the typical reveler that they’re
virtually indistinguishable, save for the notepad
in one hand, the photographers are more
easily spotted. Only at Bonnaroo can you go
out shirtless with huge, baggy pants and an
oversized, fuzzy top hat and no one so much as
bats an eyelash in your direction. Try hanging
three $2,000 cameras with $6,000 lenses
around your neck while wagging a media
wristband about and all of a sudden you’re in
business. These guys know they’re there to do
something, but whatever it is becomes blurrier
and blurrier as the weekend wears on. Chances
are they shoot for some newly-hip West Coast glossy still coasting along on that unlimited
start-up capital, which explains why they’re
nave enough to give someone like this
responsibility for such expensive gear. By
the time Sunday rolls around, they’ve taken
150 pictures of people passed out on the
ground and tried to point a 300 mm lens
at themselves and the new friends they
made at the Girl Talk show. The
writers, on the other hand, fill up
on contraband and consequently,
their notebooks with unintelligible,
stream-of-consciousness observances
that seemed perfectly rational and
downright profound at the time.
The Exhibitionist
Plenty has been said about the liberating feeling that comes with the festival scene and not much has changed in that regard with Bonnaroo. The image of a topless, middleaged woman and her four-year-old daughter with matching body art the very first year will forever be burned into this writer’s memory. Yet, full and semi nudity have nearly become clichs out here, as it just doesn’t command the attention that it used to. It has become so casual at Bonnaroo nowadays that one would barely bat an eyelash at it, which has fostered a new breed of attention-seekers. Sure, there are plenty of women that get dolled up in glitter and paint who do it for the glamour aspect, but there are also the occasional intrusive and malicious types whose good time involves planting their junk where it doesn’t belong and putting the creep-rub on the unwitting passerby. It ends badly more often than not for them, however, as stories of them leaving on stretchers at either the hands of overworked security or fed-up attendees abound. The best bet for the pasty, hairy, overweight guys that end up in that predicament is to just leave the shorts on and save the exhibitionism for the beautiful women. Bonnaroo will be that much better for it.
Warren Haynes
After performing on every stage at the festival with three different major bands and as a solo artist, Warren Haynes has ascended to a level beyond that of being just a mere musician at Bonnaroo. He became the standard bearer for live collaboration the at 2003 festival by playing a full set with the Allman Brothers Band and a commanding solo performance on the main stage, in addition to appearing as a guest performer with more than a half-dozen other bands, including Galactic, Widespread Panic, moe. and the Funky Meters. The following year he headlined as a member of the Dead and played the main stage with his own band, Gov’t Mule. Since then has built a devout following across a diverse array of music fans. If his incredible guitar skills and powerful vocals aren’t enough to draw attention, then surely the fact that he sets up shop right in the middle of the campground might. Haynes has always been a musician of the people and always one with time to stop and talk to anyone at any time. So much, in fact, that former Asheville mayor Charles Worley declared Dec. 18 to be Warren Haynes Day.
The Guy Without A Ride
It starts early Sunday morning and peaks sometime around the late evening. I’m talking about strangers asking other strangers for rides home, of course. Getting there is priority number one, obviously. As such, not everyone gives the same attention to their exit strategy — bringing their own vehicles for instance. Many are up front with it and actively ask every person they walk by if they have room, where they are going, etc. Others just hang a cardboard sign around their neck and enjoy the last day of music while hoping for the best. Those that aren’t fortunate enough to get a bite wind up along I-75 and I-24 with nothing but the backpacks they arrived with, living by the mantra “Have Thumb, Will Travel” (see also: the Wookie). Usually, those types find themselves in the company of smokies without the same sense of compassion that willing ride-givers may have. But then there are those who hitch merely for sport. There’s a certain adrenaline rush that accompanies putting oneself at the mercy of the wide open road with a destination in mind and there are entire online forums dedicated to that kind of thrill seeking.
Beatle Bob
The Legend of Beatle Bob grows ever deeper. They say that he’s been to a concert every day since 1996, but the tales surrounding the 58-year old St. Louis native named Robert Matonis seem to match that of Chuck Norris and Bill Brasky combined. He’s a living testament that with little more than a mop top, a silly yet completely recognizable dancing style and an endless wardrobe of velour suits from the 1960s, anyone with absolutely no prior connection to the music industry can still fully integrate and assimilate themselves into VIP status and virtually unlimited access. Yet, like a middle-age muse, his presence signifies that one is undoubtedly at a great show. He’s more or less taken over as a do-as-hewill emcee at the three Bonnaroo tent stages, introducing acts such as Cage the Elephant, Robyn Hitchcock, Robert Earl Keen, Merle Haggard and Alejandro Escovedo just this past year. There are two inalienable truths when it comes to Beatle Bob. First, he’s guaranteed to give an exuberant, yet somewhat awkward introduction to whoever is coming on next. He’s definitely not a pro and his sometimes unfortunate choice of words is all too telling in that regard. Second, he will hang around the side of the stage and dance like a demented a-hole. It’s just what he does. While he might be a source of amusement for Bonnaroo attendees, the music fans of St. Louis are decidedly less pleased with his presence. There’s even a site at the address www.beatlebobsitdown.com where people can share stories of where and how they were rubbed the wrong way by the guy. Judging by one story of cookie thievery, his antics aren’t always so innocent, but how history ultimately judges him may be decided in the upcoming documentary Superfan: The Lies, Life and Legend of Beatle Bob. !
